The Wedding Party Massacre - A New Mi Lai.

[wilheim]

THE bombing started at 3am on Wednesday. The villagers from the tiny desert community of Makr al-Deeb were fast asleep, exhausted after a day spent celebrating a wedding. By the time the bombing had stopped and the advancing GIs had finished marauding and shooting their way through the remains of the village, the Americans had killed at least 42 innocent people.
Among the dead were 27 members of the Rakat family who were celebrating a double family wedding. Many of their guests died as well, as did the band of musicians who played throughout the wedding and one of Iraq’s most popular singers, Hussein al-Ali from Ramadi.

One of the few people to live through the night was Haleema Shihab, the sister-in-law of the groom. She described to reporters from her hospital bed how she was sleeping in bed with her husband and children in the Rakat family villa when the bombs started to fall.

“We went out of the house and American soldiers started to shoot at us,” she said. “They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by one.”

Picking up her youngest child in her arms, with two of her sons running at her side, she was hit by shrapnel from a shell that landed nearby fracturing her legs.

Her two boys were dead on the ground beside her and as she lay next to them she was wounded again when another round hit her in the arm. One of her children had been decapitated.

“I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me,” she said. “I pretended to be dead so he wouldn’t kill me. My youngest child was alive next to me.”

Not long before daybreak, Shihab saw GIs reduce the home of the Rakat family and the house next door to a pile of rubble. When a relative carried her and her surviving child to hospital, she learned that her husband Mohammed, had also died. Mohammed was the eldest son of the Rakat family.

One witness, Dahham Harraj, said: This was a wedding and the planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that Bush has brought us?”

An unnamed witness said that bombs fell on the village one after another and three houses with the guests inside were hit. “They fired as if there were an armoured brigade inside not a wedding party.”

A third witness said: “The US military planes came and started killing everyone in the house.” One of the causes for the mass killings is likely to have been the failure by US forces to understand Iraqi culture.

At weddings, many Iraqis fire guns into the air as a sign of celebration. The Americans may have misinterpreted what was happening and sent in their bombers and infantry without pausing for thought.

If they had stopped to think they might have remembered an incident two years ago when 48 innocent Afghanis celebrating a wedding were blown to bits by US jets. Another 100 were injured. That time too, the guests had fired guns into the air to celebrate the bride and groom.

Ma’athi Nawaaf, a neighbour of the Rakats whose daughter and grand children died in the attack, said: “We were happy because of the wedding. People were dancing and making speeches.” After the ceremony, guests heard jets and saw a military convoy approaching.

“The first thing they bombed was the tent for the ceremony,” Nawaf said. “We saw the family running out of the house. The bombs were falling destroying the whole area.”

Armoured personnel carriers then drove into Makr al-Deeb, firing machine guns and backed up by helicopters. “They started to shoot at the house and the people outside the house,” Nawaf added.

Chinooks later landed and dozens of troops charged out. Explosives were set in the Rakat house and minutes later it and a neighbouring home were a pile of smouldering rubble.

“I saw something that nobody ever saw in this world,” Nawaf went on. “There were children’s bodies cut into pieces, women cut into pieces, men cut into pieces.”

Nawaf found his grandson dead in his daughter’s arms. “The other boy was lying beside her,” he said. “I found only his head. The Americans call these people foreign fighters. It is a lie. I just want one piece of evidence of what they are saying.”



In the al-Qaim general hospital, Dr Hamdi Noor al-Alusi said 11 of the dead were women and 14 were children. “I want to know why the Americans targeted this small village. These people are my patients. I know each one of them. What has caused this disaster?”

In the face of such overwhelming evidence that they had killed innocent revellers, the US stubbornly insisted that the raid was against a “suspected foreign fighter safe house”. A statement even claimed that “during the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided.”

Brigadier Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, said: “We took ground fire and we returned fire. We estimate that around 40 were killed. But we operated within our rules of engagement.”

Television footage showed a truck filled with bodies killed in the attack. Men were seen lifting the bodies from the truck, wrapped in blankets, and taking them to the desert for burial in deep pits. The corpse of a little girl of six was seen wrapped in a white shawl. Other bodies were shown with horrific injuries.

Showing an astonishing arrogance and lack of understanding for the culture or geography of the country his men are occupying, Major-General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, mocked anyone who claimed his troops had massacred innocent Iraqis.

“How many people go into the middle of desert to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilisation?” he said. “These were more than two dozen military-aged males. ”

Makr al-Deeb has been a village for a long time. Before the attack it had around two dozen homes. When Mattis was asked about TV images of a dead child, he said he had not seen the pictures and did not have to justify the actions of his men.

Deputy police chief Lieutenant Colonel Ziyad al-Jbouri said American helicopters attacked the village at around 2.45am on Wednesday morning.

The wedding party was the biggest celebration in the village for years. It marked the moment when two local families – the Rakats and Sabahs – came together with the long-negotiated marriage of Ashad Rakat and his cousin Rutba Sabah. There was also a second ceremony this time between a Rakat girl and a Sabah man. Much of the party took place under canvas in the gardens of the Rakat villa. The leader of the musicians was Hamid Abdullah, who runs the Music of Arts recording studio in Ramadi, the nearest big town.

Incredibly, the survivors included the two married couples and the patriarch of the extended family who owns the Rakat villa. Some of the graves of those who died were marked with this sole epitaph: “The American Bombing.”

Inevitably, the massacre at Makr al-Deeb – taken with the US onslaught at Fallujah which claimed hundreds of Iraqi lives and the on-going horror of the torture, rape and killing of prisoners in US custody in jails like Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib – erodes the moral foundations of the US invasion down to next to nothing. The Arab media completely discounted the US version of events, describing it as a “savage massacre”.

And the suffering of the people of Makr al-Deeb will only fuel the resistance against the occupying forces. Not far from where the victims lay buried, Ahmed Saleh said: “For each one of those graves, we will get 10 Americans.”

By Neil MacKay Sunday Herald web-site.

Sunday Herald

 

[PatPatriot]

"No Evidence of wedding at attack site"

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/22/iraq.main/index.html


Kimmitt said that troops did not find anything -- such as a wedding tent, gifts, musical instruments, decorations or leftover food -- that would indicate that a wedding had been held.

Most of the men there were of military age, and there were no elders present to indicate a family event, he said.

What was found, he said, indicated the building was used as a waypoint for foreign fighters crossing into Iraq from Syria to battle the coalition.

"The building seemed to be somewhat of a dormitory," Kimmitt said. "You had over 300 sets of bedding gear in it. You had a tremendous number of pre-packaged clothing -- apparently about a hundred sets of pre-packaged clothing; (It is) expected that when foreign fighters come in from other countries, they come to this location, they change their clothes into typical Iraqi clothing sets."

At Saturday's briefing for reporters in Baghdad, Kimmitt showed photos of what he said were binoculars designed for adjusting artillery fire, battery packs suitable for improvised explosive devices, several terrorist training manuals, medical gear, fake ID cards and ID card-making machines, passports and telephone numbers to other countries, including Afghanistan and Sudan.

None of the men killed in the raid carried ID cards or wallets, he said. "We feel that that was an indicator that this was a high risk meeting of high level anti-coalition forces. There was a tremendous number of incriminating pocket litter, a lot of telephone numbers to foreign countries, Afghanistan, Sudan and a number of others."

Kimmitt said while the location was purported to be a sheep ranch, there was no evidence of ranching activities and no livestock.

He said that the coalition would continue to have an open mind about what might have happened, and he conceded there were some inconsistencies still to be worked out.

"The more that we look at intelligence, more we dig in, more we are persuaded no wedding," Kimmitt said.

"We had significant, multiple sources of intelligence" before ordering the raid, he said.

 

[wilheim]

DISPUTE OVER BOMBING
Iraqi survivors recount US tent shelling after wedding party
By Scheherezade Faramarzi, Associated Press | May 21, 2004

RAMADI, Iraq -- As survivors tell it, the wedding party was in full swing. The band was playing tribal music, and the guests had just finished eating dinner when, at about 9 p.m., they heard the roar of US warplanes. Fearing trouble, the revelers ended the festivities and went to bed.

About six hours later, the first bomb struck the tent.

"Mothers died with their children in their arms," said Madhi Nawaf, who survived the attack Wednesday in Mogr el-Deeb on the Syrian border. Up to 45 people died, mostly women and children from the Bou Fahad tribe.

"One of them was my daughter," Nawaf said. "I found her a few steps from the house, her 2-year-old son Raad in her arms. Her 1-year-old son, Raed, was lying nearby, missing his head."

In Baghdad, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy chief of operations, said yesterday the US military would investigate after Iraqi officials reported the survivors' story. However, Kimmitt said the military maintains the target was a safehouse for infiltrators slipping across the border to fight coalition soldiers in Iraq. Kimmitt said shotguns, handguns, Kalashnikov rifles, and machine guns were found at the site. And he said soldiers also found jewelry and vehicles that indicated the people were not wandering Bedouin but "town dwellers."

"Ten miles from the Syrian border and 80 miles from the nearest city and a wedding party? Don't be naive," Marine Major General James N. Mattis said in Fallujah. "Plus, they had 30 males of military age with them. How many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?"

But members of the Bou Fahad tribe say they consider the border area part of their territory and follow their goats, sheep, and cattle there to graze. They leave spacious homes in Ramadi and roam the desert, as far as 250 miles to the west, in the springtime.

Smuggling livestock into Syria is also part of a herdsman's life -- although no one in the tribe admitted to that. Weddings are often marked in Iraq with celebratory gunfire. However, survivors insisted no weapons were fired Wednesday, despite speculation by Iraqi officials that this drew a mistaken American attack.

The survivors insist the Americans were wrong to target them.

"They're lying," Nawaf said. "They have to show us evidence that we fired a shot or were hiding foreign fighters. Where are the foreign fighters then? Why kill and dismember innocent children?"

Nawaf and more than a dozen men from the Bou Fahad tribe transported the dead to Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province, which includes Morg el-Deeb. Twenty-eight graves were dug in the tribe's cemetery outside Ramadi, each containing one to three bodies. A wake was held yesterday at a home in Ramadi.

Nawaf's brother, Taleb, lost his wife, Amal, and two daughters, 2-year-old Anoud and 1-year-old Kholood. His wife's body was found clutching the two children, survivors said.

All the men interviewed insisted there were no foreign fighters in Morg el-Deeb, a desolate area popular with smugglers. The US military suspects militants cross the area from Syria to fight the Americans, and it is under constant surveillance by American forces. "We would know if any outsider comes to our area," said Hamed Abdul-Razaq, a survivor.

Sheik Dahan Haraj, the tribe's chief who was also at the wedding, said that if the Americans suspected terrorists, "why not seal off the area and make sure they were indeed foreign fighters?"

Survivors said they became fearful when they heard aircraft overhead about 9 p.m. Tuesday. Then came military vehicles, which stopped about 2 miles away from the village and switched off their headlights. The planes were still overhead at 11 p.m.

"We began to expect some kind of catastrophe," Nawaf said.

They decided to end the celebration, and the bride and groom, Azhar Rikad and Rutba Sabah, went into their tent.

About 25 male guests who came from Ramadi for the wedding and five band members from Baghdad stayed in the main tent. All the women went to bed in an adjacent one-story stone house. Many men, including Nawaf, drifted away to their nearby homes.

The first bomb struck the main tent at about 2:45 a.m., the survivors said. Among those who died was Hussein al-Ali, a prominent wedding singer from Baghdad. The second bomb struck the stone house, killing everyone inside.

 

[wilheim]

Video of desert bombing shows carnage, survivors sifting through rubble


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Fragments of musical instruments, tufts of women's hair, and a large blood stain are among the scenes in Associated Press Television News film of a destroyed house that survivors say U.S. planes bombed during a wedding party.

It is the first known footage of the aftermath of Wednesday's attack, which killed up to 45 people, mostly women and children from the Bou Fahad tribe in Mogr el-Deeb, a desert village on the Syrian border.

The U.S. military has said the target was a suspected safehouse for foreign fighters from Syria and denied Friday that children were killed in the airstrikes.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad that U.S. troops who reported back from the operation "told us they did not shoot women and children."

"There were a number of woman, a handful of women, I think the number was four to six, caught up in the engagement. They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," Kimmitt said.

But an Associated Press reporter in the Ramadi area, at least 275 miles east of Mogr el-Deeb, was able to identify at least 10 of the bodies as those of children.

At the Bou Fahad cemetery outside Ramadi, where the tribe is based, each of the 28 fresh graves contain one to three corpses, mostly of mothers and their young children.

Relatives said they include those of 2-year-old Kholood and 1-year-old Anoud, daughters of Amal Rikad, who was killed; of 2-year-old Raad and 1-year-old Ra'ed - whose headless body was found near his house - sons of Fatima Madhi, who was killed; of Saad, 10, Faisal, 7, Anoud, 6, Fasila, 5, Kholood, 4, and Inad, 3 - children of Mohammed and Morifa Rikad, who were killed.

There also are photo and film images of dead children, but it was not possible to determine if they were already accounted for.

Bou Fahad tribesmen denied there were foreign fighters among their community. They consider the desolate border area part of their territory and follow their goats, sheep and cattle there to graze. In the springtime they leave spacious homes in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, and roam the desert.

Smuggling livestock into Syria is also part of a herdsman's life, although no one in the tribe acknowledged that.

Weddings are often marked in Iraq with celebratory gunfire, but survivors insisted no weapons were fired Wednesday - despite speculation by Iraqi officials that this drew a mistaken American attack.

The first bomb hit the huge goat-hair tent - where male guests were said to be sleeping - at about 2:45 a.m. Wednesday. The barrage didn't stop until sunrise, witnesses said. Women and children were in an adjacent one-story house and the men went to their nearby homes, they said.

After the first missile, Hamdan Khalaf ran in panic and hid in a grassy area.

"In the morning, we went back to the hill and saw people torn apart, attacked by the plane," Khalaf, who was not wounded, told APTN Thursday.

"We pulled them out of here," another man told APTN, standing on a pile of stones as he picked up a stained green cloth that looked like part of a young man's shirt. A severed arm lay in the rubble. "We took them to hospital - straight to the fridge," the unidentified man said.

An angry voice in the background of the tape denounced President Bush. "This is his terrorism," the voice said.

The body of what survivors said was the wedding's cameraman was pulled out of the debris Thursday.

The footage also showed women in colorful clothes sifting through the wreckage and carrying away blankets and other goods. Pieces of rockets and bullet casings were strewn across the sandy plain, as were pots and pans and a satellite dish. Partly charred pickup trucks and a water tanker stood in the desert.

The attack left few survivors. About a dozen wounded were taken to the town of Qaem, about 140 miles northwest of Ramadi and 130 miles north of Mogr el-Deeb.

Witnesses, interviewed Thursday by AP in Ramadi, said revelers at the wedding party began worrying when they heard aircraft overhead at about 9 p.m. Tuesday. Then came military vehicles, which stopped about two miles away from the village and switched off their headlights. The planes were still overhead at 11 p.m, so the hosts told the band to stop playing and everyone went to bed.

About four hours later, airstrikes began and continued until dawn when two helicopters landed and about 40 soldiers searched the house where the women had stayed and a second, vacant house. Soon after, the two houses were blown up. Some witnesses said the houses were attacked by helicopters; others said Americans detonated them with explosives.

Kimmitt confirmed that the operation was an air and ground assault. "Those people on the ground identified no children as part of that location that were killed," he said, adding that they reported only adult deaths.

He also referred to the APTN video and separate APTN footage from Wednesday in Ramadi that showed a headless body of a child and other bodies of children.

"What we saw in those APTN videos were substantially inconsistent with the reports we received from the unit that conducted the operation," Kimmit said. "We're now trying to figure out why there's an inconsistency.

"We're keeping an open mind as to exactly what happened on the ground. That's why we're continuing to try to gather all the facts; that's why we're not ruling out anything based on information coming forward," he added.


Associated Press

 

[jeffry22]

honestly wil - why do you keep posting stuff you know isnt true?

 

[SportSavant]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> honestly wil - why do you keep posting stuff you know isnt true? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

yeah & the holocaust didn't exist either...

I suppose u think their was no prisoner abuse at the prison's?

2 + 2 = 4

Wedding celebration fires Guns in Sky to celebrate wedding...

US military mistakes it for attack & gun's them down...

what is so hard to beleive...

Frankly...the people at the wedding should have known better than to fire gun's in the air at a time like this...how stupid...Mistake is very plausible here....But to post that it is a hoax is ridiculous, IMHO

 

[JudgeWapner]

Obviously don't know what exactly happened here.But anyone who blindly believes what our military tells us,is very naive.

 

[ClayHenry]

Anyone who blindly believes what the media tells us is very naive.

 

[jeffry22]

Hoax? its not a hoax its just plain iraqi lies - we hit a large gathering of insurgent fighters and leaders meeting in the desert. period. there was no wedding , there was no slaughter of anyone innocent. AS far as the prison "abuse" goes i am in favor of treating captives that way if it means getting info that will save american lives, arent you?

 

[barman]

JEFF: AS far as the prison "abuse" goes i am in favor of treating captives that way if it means getting info that will save american lives, arent you?

BAR: Absolutely not. Doing so violates the Geneva Convention, making us no better than terrorist orgs who do that kind of thing routinely.

 

[~Falco~]

WAR. What is it good for?

 

[wilheim]

TV Image shows an unidentified man playing a keyboard at a wedding party in the remote desert area near Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, 5 miles (8 km) away from the Syrian border, Tuesday, May 18, 2004. An attack on a wedding party that survivors say was by US planes early Wednesday, killed up to 45 people, most of them women and children. The keyboard player was reportedly killed in the attack.

TV Image shows festivities at a wedding party in the remote desert area near Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, 5 miles (8 km) away from the Syrian border, Tuesday, May 18, 2004. An attack on the wedding party that survivors say was by US planes on Wednesday, killed up to 45 people, most of them women and children.

TV Image shows the bride arriving for her wedding party in the remote desert area near Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, miles (8 km) away from the Syrian border, Tuesday, May 18, 2004. An attack on the wedding party that survivors say was by US planes on Wednesday, killed up to 45 people, most of them women and children.

TV Image shows guests at a wedding party in the remote desert area near Mogr el-Deeb, Iraq, 5 miles (8 km) away from the Syrian border, Tuesday, May 18, 2004. An attack on the wedding party that survivors say was by US planes on Wednesday, killed up to 45 people, most of them women and children.

RAMADI, Iraq - A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.

The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.


"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."


But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.


The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.


An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours.


APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on U.S. bombs.


A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.


The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.


As expected, women are out of sight - but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.


Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.


As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children — a boy and a girl — held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses.


Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.


The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.


Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" — perhaps four to six — were "caught up in the engagement."


"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters Friday.


However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.





Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful — as are their injuries.

Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell — her leg fractured.

"Hamza was yelling, 'mommy,'" Shihab, recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.

"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast.

She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise," Shihab said.

Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.

"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "'No, stop," said Shihab.

Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.

"I fear she's dead," Moza said of her mother. "I'm worried about her."

Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives.

When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha's hand.

"I don't know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra's head gone. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf.

Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver.

Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed.

In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died — most of them children and women, the family said.



Associated Press.

 

[Oceans11]

Its pretty obvious this was a major f-up.

No attempt was made to round people up, they just levelled the place and everyone in it.

-------------------------------------------
'Wedding video' clouds US denials


The video showed decorated vehicles driving in the desert
A videotape has been broadcast which purports to show before-and-after footage of a wedding which Iraqis say the US attacked, killing about 40.
The film, broadcast by Associated Press Television News, knits together a home movie of a wedding and APTN video of the aftermath of Wednesday's attack.

Some victims and survivors of the air strike appear to be present in the footage of the wedding celebrations.

The US has insisted its target was not a wedding but foreign fighters.

It says that its soldiers were responding to fire and there was no evidence of a wedding.

The incident occurred late on Tuesday at the village of Makr al-Deeb, in desert near the Syrian border.

Associated Press has stressed that it cannot confirm the authenticity of the video of the wedding celebrations.

'Traditional wedding'

The agency says the material broadcast was taken from several hours of footage allegedly filmed by Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities.

He was among those killed, it says.

The film opens with gleaming pick-up trucks - some decorated with ribbons - speeding through the desert apparently en route to the wedding.


An organist who appears on the video of wedding celebrations...

They arrive at the celebrations to the sounds of guns being fired in the air - a traditional celebration - and ululating.

The film then shows men dancing along to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular wedding singer also hired for the occasion.

Ali and his brother Mohamed were buried in Baghdad on Thursday, mourners said.

Clearly visible on the wedding footage is a man playing electric organ.

The footage is spliced with APTN film of the face of a corpse after the attack. It appears to be the same man, wearing the same shirt.


... seems to appear in a burial shroud,

apparently dead, in film taken after the attack
AP says a reporter and a photographer who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video.

It also says its footage of the scene following the attack shows remnants of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly coloured beddings used for celebrations, scattered around a bombed-out tent.

Survivors of the attack have told journalists the wedding party had ended and guests were in bed when bombing began.

When people ran out of their homes, they allege they were shot at by Americans.

They say over 40 people died, including at least 10 children.

But these allegations have been vehemently and repeatedly denied by US forces in Iraq.

'No evidence'

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief US military spokesman in Iraq, said on Saturday.


"The men were almost all military-aged, no family elders that one would expect to see at an event of this type," he said.

He has denied any children were killed in the attack.

Gen Kimmitt said the site looked "somewhat of a dormitory. There were more than 300 sets of bedding gear in it and about 100 sets of prepackaged clothing.

"It's suspected that when foreign fighters come in from other countries they change their clothes into typical Iraqi clothing sets."

He said ID-making machines and "the capability to make exit visas for Iraq" were among suspicious items found.

There has been no specific response as yet to the footage released by APTN.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3741223.stm

 

[wilheim]

This will be a major story this week.


wil.

 

[barman]

As big as the story about Chalabi - the Bush administrations main man - being an Iranian secret agent?

As big as the continuing revelations about how U.S. military and U.S.-paid mercenaries tortured prisoners who were being held pending evidence they were even criminals?

It's getting kinda busy in the This War Is a Major Fukkup category of news....How much longer til the whole thing does this:

 

[TheFunkMonkey]

While I agree with barman's point (how many stories can the media possibly cover?), I think Wil is right.

The video will give the wedding story more appeal. With the Internet, it definitely helps if a story has pics, video, etc.

If the story is just a text article on cnn.com, nobody really cares.

But if the story has video, everybody can email the video to their friends, and it spreads like a virus!

 

[eldiablo]

I guess people can't fake or stage photos ? Lets ask the editor for the British tabloid that resigned over staged photos. You can think our gov't/military lies ......fine ....but I will always believe them before I believe some of those lying insurgent bastards and their media as well. They have the Muslim media and our backstabbing media on their side. Our military should never let any media embed with them again .....and if they stalk them .....oops ...friendly fire.....we don't know how all those media members were shot with Iraqi weapons ????????

Wil, I really try ....and try hard to understand what you do here. I know you post all sorts of topics and try to promote discussions and action on this forum. I know you are disenchanted with this current President and staff ..........but I think you have shifted to Un-American. It really disgusts me that some people would incite such a stance and get other people to act this way and get the media stirred up ......etc. This indirectly and could directly endanger Americans and Americans soldiers lives. I know the handful of Bush bashers on here are a small minority. Now, I am not talking about the people that would like to change leadership and move on. I know it is roughly split down the middle. I am referring to the people who spit out this hate for Bush, America, and our soldiers. I am talking about

Lander
Xpanda
eek
Banned for Life
Everfresh
A2345exxx
Lt. Dan
barman

There are more .....I just can't think of them right now. Anyone care to add more to the list of extreme anti-American bashers ? .....and come on ....yes you guys are extreme ...don't kid yourself. Not just extreme to get Bush out of the White House, but in your overall Anti-American views and rants. I really believe by seeing what you post and discuss that Americans and American soldiers dying does not phase each of you one bit. You will go over board trying to make sure we all see the other side of things ...like Iraqi rebels dying, prisoners treated unfairly, and unintentional civilian deaths. .....I agree to see the other side ...but not at the expense of our people. I expect to see this out of the non-Americans on here ...but for some of you ...you are scumbags.

Lander are you ready to admit that you are not an American citizen ? You have dodged that question for along time.

 

[cussin'it]

E.D, atta boy! I have myself been very critical of Bush before, strictly because I disagree with his politics and the decision to rush the war. I think he should replace some key cabinet people and advisors ASAP. I beleive in holding our leaders accountable, and he/they are no exception.

I however, unlike some, recognize a very simple truth:
Those war lovers KILLED NEARLY 4000 innocent people ON OUR SOIL!
I am a moderate, but that does more than cross the line. It demmands retribution.
The anarchists would have us do nothing, or perhaps win them over with blind compassion and cheap intellectual discourse. Good luck trying, as they murder your children, rape your wife and torture you, why not offer them a cup of tea?!!!!! Or wave your little "I'm not an American" flags!??? Maybe they'll just go away?

And I agree with you this bashing comes very close to aiding and abetting these psychos as it undermines our unity and resolve in the overall effort to eliminate this trash.

I'll guaran-goddam-tee ya I support whatever it takes to keep those crazy maniacs off my front lawn, your front lawn, every AMERICAN'S front lawn. PERIOD.

I have sincere compassion for the innocent Iraqi women and children, and their losses, and sickened by the loss of brave young American soldiers. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten. But the one(s) to blame for this is Saddam and his genocidal bunch of cowardly cohorts and the homicidal Islamic militant criminals. They brought it on. They embraced terror, loved to see Americans die, and slaughtered tens of thousands of their own kind.
The blame falls on those that love terror, love to kill anyone who doesn't embrace their twisted version of Isalm.

The course has been set, not by us but by them. I just continue to hope that we get back on the mission. Resolve to finish the job, learn from the mistakes that have been make and be compassionate but determined to see it through.

_________________________
Sure could use a trim

[This message was edited by cussin'it on May 24, 2004 at 01:17 AM.]

[This message was edited by cussin'it on May 24, 2004 at 01:19 AM.]

[This message was edited by cussin'it on May 24, 2004 at 01:30 AM.]

[This message was edited by cussin'it on May 24, 2004 at 01:32 AM.]

 

[wilheim]

El diablo - I really don't care if you believe me or not, but I did serve in Viet Nam, and am the same age as GWB (within 6 months). I cannot help but hold it against him that he weaseled out of service, and almost 60,000 guys just like me never came back. If you were there, and saw the things I did you would feel the same way. That is really the bottom line, I am far from un-American, it breaks my heart to see more young Americans die for bullshit lies.


wil.

 

[eldiablo]

Wil, I take your word you served Nam. Now, some of these yahoos have not. I really don't care if you or whoever bashes Bush and his underlings. I am referring to the over exposure of half or very little true propaganda that is spit out from all different sorts of unreliable sources. I don't know how many people see this site and other political forums, but all of the constant negative claims and stories can cause a things to get distorted. The story could be passed along to the different media outlets and they view it as Americans wanting to lynch their own President and this is ...... throwing fuel on the fire for them.

Some people on here think that Iraqi's are justified in resisting this so-called invasion and occupation. ....Well maybe so .....but who in their right mind would think that they ...would continue to kill and mame their own people. They bomb and shoot Iraqis everyday .....civilian, police guards, etc.
Think for one second ....if some country tried that here ....would we run around shoot our own ???? Hell no ...maybe someone gets caught up in a firefight or something, but not purposely killing our own people.

Your disgust for Bush is fine. Did you say the same things for Clinton when he fired missiles as a distraction during the impeachment process ? Didn't he do even one step worse than Bush in your and everyone's eyes ?

It seems like you being in the military would have understanding for what they(current soldiers) are going through. You can dislike the leadership but it seems like you walk the line and sometimes cross it with the topics and posts you have. Some of the names mentioned are on record for wanting or not caring if American soldiers die. Do you feel that way ?